Editor’s Letter: Welcome to Sixated

A letter from Margaux Devlin, Editor-in-Chief of Sixated.

When we sat down to relaunch Sixated, we kept circling the same frustration — one I suspect you share. Somewhere along the way, the guides meant to help us choose stopped choosing anything. “The 30 best serums.” “The ultimate 42 fall coats.” “50 gifts she’ll actually love.” Lists so long they had quietly stopped being recommendations and become inventories with a headline. I have written a few of those in my career, and I am not proud of the padding.

So Sixated is our answer, and it is deliberately narrow. Every guide we publish gives you exactly six picks. Six. We call it the Top-6, and it is not a design flourish — it is the entire promise. The number is small enough that we cannot hide behind volume, and generous enough to cover a category honestly. To reach six, our editors have to do the thing most publishers avoid: say no to a perfectly good seventh option because a better one already holds its place.

That “no” is where I want Sixated to live. Anyone can list everything. The value — the reason to trust a byline — is in what an editor is willing to leave out. When Camille tells you the six moisturisers worth your shelf space, she has tested and rejected far more, and she can defend every survivor. When Priya narrows a season to six pieces, the discipline of the format forces a point of view instead of a shrug. I would rather give you a short list I can stand behind than a long one that covers me.

I should say clearly what Sixated is and is not, because our name sits close to another. Sixated — with “-ed,” at sixated.com — is this publication: fashion, beauty, wellness, and lifestyle, made by people whose names you can read. It has nothing to do with “Sixation,” the streamer, the game, or the short film that share the near-spelling. Different word, different people, no connection. If you came looking for us, the fashion-and-lifestyle Sixated, you are home.

Here is who you are trusting. I am fortunate to work with editors I would take recommendations from in real life: Priya Nair on Fashion, Camille Rousseau on Beauty, Naomi Okafor on Wellness, Elena Bianchi on Lifestyle and Home, Hannah Weiss on Shopping, and Sofia Marchetti on Culture and Icons. Eight sections, one standard. We write as ourselves, we test what we recommend, and when we get something wrong we will correct it in the open rather than quietly rewrite the past.

A word on how Sixated stays alive, because you deserve to know. We are independent and reader-funded. When you buy through a link in one of our guides we may earn a small commission, at no cost to you, and — this is the part that matters — that money can never buy a place on a list. A Sixated guide has six spots and no back door. We label sponsored work as sponsored, plainly, every time. And there are things we simply will not touch: no paid links dressed as editorial, and nothing to do with gambling, casinos, or betting. Sixated is about getting dressed, taking care of yourself, and making a home you love. That is the whole beat.

People ask whether all of this is written by a machine. It is not. We use software the way any newsroom does, to research and tidy and check ourselves, but the judgment — the taste, the decision about which six — comes from the humans whose names are on the page. You cannot outsource a point of view, and the Top-6 is nothing but point of view.

What you can expect from Sixated is a certain kind of relief. Open a guide, read six honest picks and the reasons behind them, make your decision, and get on with your life. We measure ourselves not by how long we kept you scrolling but by whether you left having chosen well. If we do this right, Sixated becomes the place you go when you are tired of lists that will not commit — the one publication that tells you the six.

Thank you for reading, and welcome to Sixated. I hope it earns a permanent tab.

Margaux Devlin
Editor-in-Chief, Sixated